EVENTS

It looks like Hobby Lobby has won its case. In a 5-4 decision along the usual lines (Roberts, Thomas, Scalia, Alito, and Kennedy, all of whom are Catholics by the way), the court said that ‘closely held corporations’ (a specific type of for-profit corporation) each owned and controlled by members of a single family cannot be forced to provide contraception coverage for its employees and should be given the same accommodations as the government gave nonprofit organizations.

This was the case where two private, profit-making companies (Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Products) sought to also expand the exemption that had been granted to religious institutions so that they could avoid having the health insurance programs that they offer employees cover contraception. The owners of the companies claimed that they should not have to provide contraceptive coverage if doing so violates their religious beliefs. (I wrote about the significance of this case here and the oral arguments here.)

The majority opinion said that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act or RFRA applies to these corporations and the government had not shown that the contraception mandate is the least restrictive means of advancing its interest in providing birth control. However, it also said that the ruling should not be used as a cloak to hide illegal discrimination under the guise of religion, and that it did not apply to all health insurance mandates such as transfusions or vaccinations.

This seems like a narrow ruling that only applies to a specific issue (birth control) to a narrow class of businesses (closely held corporations) and is going to be debated a lot. But it still represents to my mind yet another example of the kind of undue deference given to religion.

There is NO WAY you’re ever gonna get more than a dozen congresscritters to vote to repeal a law called “The Religious Freedom Restoration Act.” As presently constituted you couldn’t get the Supremes to knock it down for unconstitutionality.

So we are stuck with this egregious official religious privileging law for at least the next 50 years.

However, it also said that the ruling should not be used as a cloak to hide illegal discrimination under the guise of religion, and that it did not apply to all health insurance mandates such as transfusions or vaccinations.

Yes, they actually wrote that, but their logic is opaque. I see nothing in the chain of reasoning which could not be applied equally as well to those other medical treatments. Except that the five jsutices in the majority are Roman Catholics, not Jehovah’s Witnesses. It appears they take their own religious biases seriously, bot not of other religions.